Final first round battle in the MMORPG Showdown 2 series. 

The Match-Up

The final match of the first round once again provides a very close finish. Last year, Maple Story edged out RuneScape in one of the most memorable matches yet. This year, Fury and Hellgate: London had a nail biter that went down to the final day of voting. While RuneScape and Maple Story are both popular and have fan clubs of players who love to hate each game, Hellgate: London and Fury are two high profile MMOs that failed to meet lofty expectations. Fury was supposed to revolutionize PvP in MMOs and Hellgate was heralded as the Diablo of MMOs. However, things did not go quite  as expected for either game. Both mixed subscription models with free-to-play elements instead of just being free-to-play and both have been very buggy. While Guild Wars has a simple model of offering free online play after buying the game, Hellgate: London and Fury charge full retail for their games and have subscription models to get the most out of the games. Fury has since introduced a completely free player class called the Chosen, but it still has subscription classes who get more out of the game. Without the fuzzy subscription models, players may have been more forgiving of the bugs that both games had on launch. The biggest difference between these two games is that Fury focuses exclusively on PvP while Hellgate is more geared for PvE. When are developers going to realize that players want ample doses of both in the same game? However, chalk up a small victory for PvE since Hellgate was able to squeak past Fury on the final day of voting. 

Tale of the Tape

Hellgate: London

• Free to play at the lowest version.
• Amazing 3D graphics.
• Both MMORPG and FPS elements.
• Three different factions with 2 different characters classes each.
• Each class has its own distinct personality and play style.
• Weapons can disassembled and then used in crafting or just upgrading other weapons.
• Groups can be up to 5 players.

Versus 

Fury

• Free to play at the lowest version.

• PvP only.

• Combines FPS elements with RPG elements.

• No set classes so players have the freedom to mold their characters without being restricted to the rules and abilities of one class.

• Matchmaking system pits players of similar skill and experience together.

• Built on the Unreal Engine 3.

Select Comments For Hellgate: London (Edited for Presentation)

Rating: 5
Author: Jrod
Comment: Hellgate: London deserves a 5 due to being buggy because it was rushed for the October 31st release. The gameplay is pretty good for a single player, but does not offer much replay value. After you hit level 25-30, you are about done with the game.

Rating: 7
Author: asandro
Comment: Not perfect, but it still  kills Fury! The PvE is fun and the multiplayer is ok, but not great.

Rating: 10
Author: mmoking
Comment: You are stupid underrating this MMO! This is an amazing game! Fury Stinks!

Select Comments for Fury (Edited for Presentation)

Rating: 10
Author: mahoogleman
Comment: Fury is a great game for people that just enjoy fighting. None of that silly leveling or tedious questing just to be able to PvP. This game puts you right in the action. It's playable forever because of the constant action. 

Rating: 4
Author: NeoLlamster
Comment: PvP only won't work unless you design the game brilliantly. It's safe to say that Auran did not. Fury is buggy and shallow. The upcoming content expansion is the only thing that could save it.

Rating: 10
Author: fun828
Comment: This game is really fun and there is a lot of fast gameplay in it. There is a huge amount of armor to pick from and they look nice. The only problem that I really have in this game is choosing armor, because it is hard to know what armor is better. There is also a HUGE amount of powers to chose from and the game has really cool death moves like in Mortal Kombat. This game is a really great free MMO.

The Voting

Hellgate: London received a total score of 5.63

Fury received a total score of 4.57

The Result

Hellgate: London Wins!